Facebook reminded me recently about taking my dad out to fly a kite. So this is just a reminder for anyone else going through the caregiving experience. Dedicate some time for fun with the person you’re caring for. It can’t all be about the daily caregiving grind. You need to find a way to enjoy the person and remember why you love them enough to care for them in the first place.

For the year that we all lived together, we made Sundays a day to go out and do something fun as a family. So if it was a nice day, we flew a kite or went to a playground. If it wasn’t, we went bowling or out to dinner. Look for ways to rejuvenate yourselves and your love for each other. Get chair massages. Go out for ice cream. Have a picnic in your living room. Watch kids playing at a playground. Enjoy your favorite movie together.

And take pictures. I promise you that you’ll be so grateful later to see pictures of the person you love smiling.

The memories you build on those days will be a comfort once your caregiving experience is over.

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Have you all been watching This Is Us? If not, stop everything and go binge watch it. Now. I’ll wait…See??!!! It’s the best show on TV right now. In the most recent episode, a couple of the characters hold each others’ faces to help soothe them in a moment of distress. I was thinking about what an intimate and loving thing it is to touch someone’s face. We do it to our parents, our children, our spouses. It’s like we’re embracing the thing that most tells the world who we are – the physical manifestation of our identity. Even if we don’t normally consider ourselves beautiful, when someone touches our face lovingly, we feel lovely in that moment. It makes us feel seen, accepted, valued. Allowing someone to hold our face takes trust and an acceptance of vulnerability. And holding someone’s face in our own hands makes us feel tender toward them. It makes us generous and protective. It’s a true act of love, probably even more than kissing.

Let’s call it a face hug.

Even more than a year after my dad died, I can still feel his face in my hands. That thought, while sad because I miss it, does bring a quiet joy. And it reminds me of how much love there was between us.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get this up on Etsy soon and post a link for purchase. Until then, you can get prints and other merch here and here.

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

In the wake of yet another terror bombing, I find myself, once again, at a loss for words. I don’t know how to stop people who have that much hate in their hearts. I don’t know how to change the minds of people who worship a god they believe commands them to kill innocent people. That way of thinking is so utterly incomprehensible to me, that I don’t even know where to start.

All I can do, yet again, is offer my love. You are not alone. I offer my support to those in our societies that feel so ostracized that the only way they think they can gain power is at the expense of others. You don’t have to destroy to get respect, but you do have to talk about your pain to get the love you need. You are not alone. I offer my support to those affected by violence of any kind – be it perpetuated by their own governments, by extremist fundamentalists, by family members, or by madmen. You are not alone. Don’t take the pain inflicted on you out on others. Don’t perpetuate retribution. Again, please talk about it to anyone and everyone and make them understand.

To everyone affected by the attacks in Turkey last night, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that our societies have failed so many people. I’m so sorry that we can’t seem to learn from the past. I’m so sorry that you were just trying to hop on a plane and go about your lives and a few delusional assholes tore a hole in your world. Please know that we are with you. You are not alone.

Like this:

On this Father’s Day, which may be the last one I have before my dad dies, I’m choosing to hold on tight. I’m choosing to remember who he was before the disease. I’m choosing to accept him as he is now with the disease. I’m choosing to believe that he still loves me deep down in some essential part of himself. I’m choosing to celebrate the fact that I had – for most of my life – the best dad I could ever have hoped for. I’m choosing gratitude. Thank you, Poppa Bear.

Like this:

Phew, glad that’s over. I survived another art show opening reception. I both love and hate them. I love them, because it’s all about ME!!! And I love things that are about me. Really, this blog should be called, LIKE ME LIKE ME LIKE ME. But that’s really the only thing I like about them. You stand around and your feet hurt (I was wise enough not to wear heels this time) and find yourself repeating the story of how the paintings came to be, and while it’s new to each person you’re telling it to, I feel redundant and unoriginal because I know I’ve said the same thing at least eleventy-two times before. They’re awkward as all hell. How do you introduce yourself to strangers that might have questions or be interested in buying? You can’t just walk up and say, “Hi, I’m the artist,” because what if they don’t have questions? I feel like I’m walking up and saying, “Hi, I’m the artist. Now stroke my ego and tell me how amazing my art is.” See? Awkward. New rule: I’m going to wear a hat with flashing lights and arrows pointing at me with “ARTIST” written loud and proud. Then people can come to me. If I’m feeling subtle, maybe I’ll go with a name tag. That’d probably be better. I don’t want them to know that I want it to be all about me.

Last night’s opening happened very last minute, so I sent out a desperate Facebook message to my local friends begging them to come so I wouldn’t stand there looking all sad and pathetic by myself. And they came. And they were awesome. And they regularly kicked me out of the nest to go talk to strangers and do the whole awkward hi-I’m-the-artist thing. And I actually met some pretty cool people. Whoddathunk it? I met a poet whose dad also has dementia and has a blog, so we traded info. And a woman came up to me and gave me a hug, and I had a moment of panic trying to figure out how I knew her, but then I realized she was just hugging me because she felt she’d found a kindred spirit.

But what was super extra cool, is that the pastor from my grandparents’ church in Chicago saw my Facebook begging and told a couple who actually knew my grandparents from Chicago but now live in the Raleigh area. And they came. And they were awesome. And it made me miss my grandparents (both of whom have died) a little, but I had fun telling stories about them and I was grateful that I had stories to tell. The show itself was from my dancer series, which I started because I was paying homage to my grandmother and great aunt from the other side of the family, and I love that I ended up feeling like I had both sets of grandparents there with me.

So all in all, while it was kind of torture, it was good torture, and I feel well loved.